


Strawberries For Hermann

by decadent_mousse



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Anniversaries, Fluff, M/M, yogurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:09:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3752185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadent_mousse/pseuds/decadent_mousse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt cooks up a surprise for Hermann in the lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strawberries For Hermann

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cypress_tree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypress_tree/gifts).



> A birthday gift for [cypress_tree](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cypress_tree/pseuds/cypress_tree)! I hope you like it, and I hope you have an excellent day! <3

Hermann had learned fairly early in his and Newton’s partnership to be wary any time he walked in the laboratory and smelled something strange and unfamiliar.  The smell of chalk?  Familiar.  As was the scent of various dissected _things_ and the various chemicals Newton used on a regular basis to sterilize his work area.

When Hermann walked into the lab this time, he smelled… strawberries?

“Newton?”

There was no response, and that made him all the more suspicious.  Fruit was innocent enough in its own right, but when combined with the lab reeking of it, it filled Hermann with a profound sense of dread.  What was Newton up to this time?  

“Newton!” he repeated, louder, with equal parts ire and concern.  

Newton still wasn’t answering him, which was hardly reassuring.  Hermann stormed through the lab, across the line dividing their respective sides of the lab, and approached a set of plastic curtains that – now that he thought about it – had not been there the day before.  Swallowing thickly, he grasped the edge and pulled it open – steeling himself for whatever he might find within.

Inside stood a familiar figure, standing in front of a table and poking at something on it.  

Hermann rolled his eyes and stepped in, still cautious, and tapped his infuriating fool of a partner on the shoulder.

Newt nearly jumped out of his skin and dropped something with an odd clattering accompanied by a soft plop.  He spun around, eyes wide, and pulled his earbuds out of his ears.  

“Jesus, dude, are you trying to give me a heart attack?!  Why’d you sneak up on me like that?”

“I called out to you, multiple times.  Very little stealth was involved.”

“Uh, well, I couldn’t _hear_ you!”

“Obviously.”

Newton stood very still in front of the table.  “I thought you weren’t gonna be back for another couple of hours.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Hermann replied, narrowing his eyes.  “What are you doing?”

“Doing?  I’m not doing anything?  Just work and stuff.”

“And stuff?”

“Work.  Just work.”

“Hmm.”

Hermann took a few steps to the left to better see what Newton had been up to, but the other man quickly moved to block his view.  When he moved to the right, the same thing happened.  

“Newton.”

“Hermann.”

“What are you hiding?”

Newton gave him one of the most wide-eyed, guileless looks Hemann had ever seen.  “I’m– I’m not hiding anything!”  

“Really.”

“Y’know, I’m not so sure that I like what you’re insinuating, Hermann!  I’m just minding my own business over here, on my side of the lab, trying to get some work done–”  Something bubbled loudly behind him and he spun around in a panic.  “Oh shit!”

Hermann took the opportunity to look over his shoulder at the bubbling pot of… something.

“Newton, explain yourself.”

“I’m making yogurt.  I grew my own bacteria and everything.”

“Grew your own… Is that _safe_?”

“Eh, safe-ish.”

That sounded less than promising.  Hermann tried again.  “Is it legal?”

“...Probably?”

“Newton.”

“Dude, do you really think I’d be growing something dangerous in here?  Or illegal?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Newton put a hand over his heart and gave him a wide-eyed, wounded look.  “That hurts, Hermann.”

“You’re evading.”

Newt’s offended ruse disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.  “It’s not dangerous, okay?  I mean, not any more dangerous than the bacteria in other yogurt.  Whether it’s legal or not, I dunno, I didn’t really stop to check the regulations on this stuff before I got started.”

Hermann pinched the bridge of his nose.  

“Come on, it’s alright!  It’s not like they’re gonna fire me for making contraband yogurt.”

“But _why_ are you making it in the first place?”

Newton gave him a confused look.  “Uh, because I wanted yogurt?”

Hermann stared at him him flatly.

“Do you know how hard it is to get yogurt these days?  And even if you can find it somewhere, it’s so tightly rationed it’s not even worth the hassle of trying to actually get your hands on it.  Making your own is pretty easy, if you know what you’re doing, and the stuff’s easy to get ahold of.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Know what you’re doing?”

“Oh, ha ha, very funny.  You act like I’ve never cooked before.”

Hermann knew in theory that Newton could cook.  Or rather, Newton had told him – long ago when they first corresponded with each other – that he could cook.  Whether or not it was true, he really couldn’t say.  They hadn’t exactly had much time to spare for culinary pursuits lately, and even if they had, it wasn’t as though there were many ingredients readily available and free for the taking.  So, yes, it was possible Newton _could_ cook, but Hermann had yet to personally witness it.

He was hesitant to call whatever he was doing _now_ cooking.  It looked more like a lab experiment than anything that might actually be edible.

“This isn’t even the first time I’ve made yogurt, dude.  When I was in college I made my own yogurt cultures all the time.”

He could just picture it, a young teenage Newton growing bacteria in his dorm room while the rest of the student body looked on in horror.

Newt must have seen the look on his face, because he rolled his eyes.  “I know what I’m doing.  Even if I didn’t, what do you think would happen?  Oh no, I ruined a batch of a yogurt, we’re all doomed!”

He turned back to his “experiment,” and Hermann warily moved in to get a closer look.  It was pink, and looked very thick, with a smooth surface that bubbled occasionally.  It certainly didn’t look like anything diabolical.  It simply looked like… well, like yogurt – albeit a very large quantity of it.  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected.  

“Strawberry.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The yogurt,” Newt said.  “It’s strawberry flavored.”

“I had guessed as much when the whole lab reeked of strawberries.”

The other man snorted loudly.  “‘Reeked.’  You and I both know you go wild for strawberries.”

Hermann wasn’t even going to dignify that with a response.

Newton glanced over his shoulder and grinned.  “I was thinking of adding some chocolate in there, too.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, but, I dunno.”  He shook his head sadly.  “I guess you wouldn’t really be that interested in chocolate-strawberry yogurt, huh?  Maybe I should just scrap the whole thing…”

Hermann knew exactly what Newton was doing.  Even worse, it was working.

“I don’t believe that’s necessary.  After all, you’ve already invested your time and what’s probably a considerable amount of strawberries in this endeavor.  It would be wasteful to abandon it now.”

“Uh huh.”  Newt’s eyes twinkled.  “So is that a ‘yes’ to the chocolate, or…?”

~

“Why would you do this?”  Hermann asked, dipping his spoon into his bowl of yogurt.

Newt raised an eyebrow and said around a spoonful of yogurt, “Why _wouldn’t_ I do this?”

“A fair point, but why would you do this now?”

“Maybe I just had a yogurt craving.”

“You craved strawberry and chocolate yogurt.”  Hermann liked strawberries.  Moreover, he loved chocolate covered strawberries, a fact that Newton was most certainly aware of.  

Newt pulled the spoon out of his mouth and stared at him.  “You seriously don’t remember what today is?”

Hermann felt a bit like a deer caught in headlights.  Immediately he started going over a mental checklist.  It wasn’t his birthday.  It wasn’t Newton’s birthday.  It wasn’t any sort of national or international holiday that he could recall offhand.  It wasn’t–

“It’s our anniversary.”

Hermann squinted at him, confused.  “It is not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Newton, it _isn’t._ ”

“Nine years ago, we agreed to meet each other, remember?  We had a coffee date.”

“What?!”  Hermann snorted.  “I would hardly call that a date.”

“You brought me a rose, dude.”

Hermann sputtered and stammered and… couldn’t exactly deny it.  It was true that they had agreed to meeting for coffee, and he had brought a rose – a spur of the moment decision when he’d passed by a flower shop on his way to meet Newton.  Even so, the encounter had hardly been what Hermann would call romantic in any sense of the word.

“If you’ll recall, by the end of that ‘date’ we were arguing and swearing we’d never see each other again.”

Newt rubbed the back of his head.  “Yeah, well…”

“People in a romantic relationship typically celebrate the day the romance _began_ , not the day some years beforehand.”

“Hermann, we live in a huge metal paramilitary base full of giant _robots_ and spend all day researching ways to kill giant monsters from another dimension.  There’s nothing ‘typical’ about us.”

“Be that as it may–”

“Okay, okay.”  Newt waved his spoon at him.  “Fine.  So what would you consider our actual anniversary?”

“The day we started dating, of course.”

“Officially.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  When was that?”

Hermann sighed loudly.  “Nearly three years ago.  You took me to dinner and we walked through a park.”

Newt pointed at him with the spoon, and Hermann began to suspect he was in serious danger of having yogurt slung at him.  “We had sex _before_ that, though.”

“Yes, one time.”

“Three times,” Newton corrected, still waving his spoon around dangerously close to Hermann’s face.  “And there were already, y’know, feelings on both sides, right?  So _technically_ –”

~

An hour later they still hadn’t managed to agree on the actual date of their anniversary, but they had both agreed to stop arguing about it after Hermann ended up with a faceful of yogurt.

“You’ve really outdone yourself this time,” Hermann said dryly.  “This is by far the most romantic night I’ve ever experienced.”

“Oh come on,” Newt said, wiping the last of the yogurt off of Hermann’s face with a damp paper towel.  “I already said I was sorry.”  He leaned in, squinting.  “Looks like I missed a spot.”

“You–”

Newt kissed him and gave him a smile that lit up the room.  “So, do you like your yogurt?”

“You really made this for me?  For our anniversary?”  For their _supposed_ anniversary, at any rate.

“Hey, I can make romantic gestures when I put my mind to it!”

Hermann couldn’t hide the smile that fought its way onto his face.  He was quite familiar with Newton’s “romantic gestures.”  They had a habit of exploding in his face, more often than not – sometimes even literally.  His heart was always in the right place, however, and this time…  This time the yogurt was quite delicious, Hermann had to admit.  

“I never doubted it for a moment.”

Newt wiggled his eyebrows.  “How about we take what’s left of the yogurt and eat it in bed?”

“That sounds delicious.”


End file.
